Former Jill Biden Press Secretary Michael LaRosa Reveals What Really Went Wrong in 2024

Ben, Beleh, and Dylan sit down with Michael LaRosa, former press secretary for First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, for an unfiltered conversation about the Biden White House, the campaign’s media failures, and what went wrong in 2024.

Michael kicks things off by sharing his experience working with Jill Biden and how he navigated the campaign’s inner circle despite being an outsider with deep media connections (00:39). He reveals how Biden’s team actively avoided press engagement and how Dr. Biden pushed for Joe to be more visible while campaign staff wanted to “run out the clock” (07:10).

Later, the conversation turns to the critical mistakes that doomed Biden’s reelection bid—why the team refused to adjust strategy even as his numbers plummeted, their bunker mentality, and how failing to engage with the media let GOP narratives take over (12:52). Michael explains how internal White House arrogance prevented them from seeing the warning signs and why their response to Biden’s disastrous debate performance was worse than the debate itself (34:26).

Wrapping up, Michael discusses the future of Democratic strategy, the lessons they should have learned from Trump, and why scripted, robotic candidates are no longer viable in today’s media landscape (23:06). Plus, he reflects on the Biden family’s deep distrust of the press, stemming from the 1987 plagiarism scandal, and how that shaped their approach to the 2024 race (42:38).

Follow Michael LaRosa @MichaelLaRosaDC, Beleh ⁠⁠@Btoma15⁠⁠, Ben ⁠⁠@BenBartlettt⁠⁠⁠,⁠ and Brogressive Podcast ⁠⁠@BrogressivePod⁠⁠ on Twitter/X.

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Welcome back, guys, to another episode of The Progressive
Podcast. I am here today joined by Belay
and Dylan. And we have a really awesome
guest today, Michael Larosa. He was the press secretary for
first lady Doctor Jill Biden during the Biden administration.
He has a lot of experience working in politics, in media,
was a segment producer and writer for Hardball with Chris

(00:31):
Matthews from 2017 to 2019. And he has a lot of experience
working like in the weeds with all these people that we spent
all our time analyzing and talking about.
And he's actually has a first hand experience working with
them. So I just wanted to start,
Michael, first of all, thank youfor joining us.
But thanks. For having me.
If you could just tell us a little bit about your experience
working as the press secretary for Doctor Jill Biden, what did

(00:53):
that look like on a day-to-day basis, and how was that
experience the first couple years of the Biden
administration? Sure.
So I joined Doctor, we called her Doctor BI joined Doctor B in
the fall of 2019 during the primary season.
I was not, I was on Capitol Hillat the time.

(01:15):
So I had actually been ATV producer for about 7 years on
Hardball from like 2010 to 2017.And then I went to Capitol Hill
for two years, worked in the Senate and, and briefly in the
caucus and then jumped on the presidential.
You know, a lot of people at thetime on the Hill or in, in DC

(01:39):
were jumping on all these campaigns.
In January, the spring of 2019, I stayed on the Hill because I
really, while I really did want to do a presidential campaign
and knew it was probably the best time in my life to do it.
I was a little older. I didn't have a lot of like
obligations keeping me like in DC, so I could go, I could move

(02:05):
to wherever the campaign was. And it was probably like the
last time in my life that I'd really had the opportunity to do
soup to nuts, you know, from thebasement up kind of campaign
experience, which is what I wanted.
I wanted to do like the whole early state thing and be a part
of all that. But I was pretty selective, and
I really did only want to work for Biden.

(02:29):
And I actually didn't make the first cut in the spring.
And then I was introduced slowlyin the spring to her chief of
staff, Anthony Bernal, who had been with her for a really long
time. And Anthony and I connected
through everything. Comes back to your first
internship, by the way, because my first internship was with the

(02:50):
Hillary Clinton folks when she was a senator and met a lot of
my mentors in politics through through that internship who knew
the Biden orbit knew Anthony from the Clinton White House
days and that's how we were brought together and it was very
rare for what the Biden's. They've been around politics for

(03:14):
so long. They have sort of these baked in
layers of advisors and staff andit's really all about, you know,
kind of flee, you know, and how you get connected.
It's very, it's very hard to break into a circle.
It's been around for a very longtime.
So it was a, it was really, I was really grateful and really

(03:35):
appreciated the trust that they actually put into bringing not
only somebody from the outside of their, their orbit, but
somebody who used to be involvedin the media.
Because a lot of people, a lot of staff in politics, you know,
treat the press like a hazard and a threat and very

(03:58):
suspiciously. And so I love this.
I like, I really loved and appreciate the fact that Doctor
B and Anthony took a chance on me and brought me in, in what
became the traveling bubble because I was her traveling
press secretary. And so I traveled everywhere
with her and my job was to make sure press showed up at these

(04:20):
small little events in Iowa, NewHampshire, South Carolina,
Nevada. And and then, you know, that we
were being transparent at fundraisers and having a pool
reporter there granting access to the press, but making sure
press showed up to cover her events.
And it's very hard in a big field like that to get the press

(04:41):
to cover, you know, the bottom tier candidates, let alone the
spouse. But to her credit, despite
whatever misgivings she may havehad about the press, and she
probably has earned the right tohave them, she leaned in to the
press willing to do anything. And she really leaned in into

(05:06):
being a surrogate and to doing anything she could that would
help him. And that was her, her, her
primary role was to, you know what, what makes the spouse a
unique is that they, they can take voters behind the curtain.
They can present a view, a perspective that no one else
can. And voters really appreciate

(05:29):
that, especially in those small coffee shops and, and libraries
and schools and in those early states.
And so there were a lot of highsand lows of the campaign.
Obviously, as you may remember, we lost the first 3 contests
pretty badly and there was like a two week period where things

(05:51):
really turned around for us and it was a wild ride and she was a
lot of fun. It was a small for for a while
we were just traveling commercial and it was just me,
Anthony, Jill and and Jordan, her body person.
And we became, we quickly becamefamily to each other and you

(06:12):
know, I miss them and I miss youknow it.
It was, you know, it was an experience, you know, you go
through kind of you feel like you're in a, in the trenches in
a way, because you're on the road and you're with the spouse
and you're doing all these events, 44 events a day,
traveling all over the country. And you know, you, you endure

(06:32):
these disappointments and these hardships after you've put in so
much time and, and energy into making this happen.
And it when it looks like it's slipping away, you know, you can
see sort of like the humanity inpeople.
And, you know, I was lucky that it was a, it was such a small

(06:54):
little group of us that I got toknow her so well and she got to
know me very well. And, you know, there was also
resentment because I did come from the outside and I did come
from media. A lot of the staffers back in
the, in the Philadelphia office did not like that.
They did not like that they werebringing in somebody who was so

(07:18):
connected to the reporters and journalists covering the spouse
because they couldn't control somebody brand new and somebody
who they didn't like. The fact that I had
relationships with so many of the traveling press corps

(07:38):
already from not just being a producer, but it's working on
Capitol Hill as well. But I'd known most of them for
years. They did not like that their
mode was constantly to keep the keep Joe Biden, Vice President
Biden, then away from the press and as little information as
possible. Michael, real quick, yeah, I

(07:59):
think you bring up an interesting point about them not
that necessarily being open to someone that was so close to the
media. I would think that if I'm
running a campaign, I would loveto have Someone Like You because
you have these personal relationships, right?
We can get them to maybe producesome more positive stories,
whatever it is. I read your article on MSNBC
about two weeks ago and you bring up how, you know, Doctor
Joe Biden always wanted Joe to be Joe and that included, you

(08:22):
know, putting him in front of the cameras more, you know, and
you talk about how she pushed for him and then he went on the
View the next day or that week. So kind of talk about the if, if
you can talk about kind of the internal campaign, you know, the
calculations over, you know, putting him in front of the
camera and ultimately, I think him going on The view.
I remember watching that. I was like 17 years old at the
time. I'm not going to lie, I was a

(08:42):
Bernie supporter at that time. And I think we all were so, and
I, I remember watching him on the View and I was like, you
know what, he can do this shit like he can do this.
And I just felt like the campaign, especially during the
2020 campaign, really restrainedhim at times when I think Doctor
Joe Biden, you're right, wanted him to be himself and go in
front of the cameras and connectwith people.

(09:03):
So if you could talk a bit aboutthat?
Yeah. And for me, you know, I I met
him just when I joined and but Ihad known who he was as a
political junkie. And I had, I had come to know, I
think Joe Biden became a household name over time,
especially for a young politicaljunkie like me in the 90s,
because he was always on television.

(09:25):
He was always on Meet the Press or the Sunday shows.
He was always, I mean, he was onMeet the Press when their house
was burning down. She'll like, she'll remind us in
Wilmington. He was on doing a Sunday show.
He was always one of the most accessible politicians.
And look, I don't know exactly when or why.

(09:48):
I have an idea why some of that changed.
I think, you know, when the Bidens left the White House,
their family became a little bitmore exposed than it's ever
been. And the natural instinct of pre

(10:11):
of staff is to always protect. And that instinct can serve you
well. I mean it, it was definitely a
strategy in the 90s. Like if there's something if, if
a reporter, if they're going to report something bad about you,

(10:33):
don't engage, don't give it thenthey used to say don't give it
oxygen, don't give it credibility.
You can't do that anymore because the media system is so
fragmented. You have social media podcasts
that are talking about this. Yes, you're right.
And I thought we learned this lesson in in the Hillary Clinton

(10:55):
race, but apparently we didn't. But if you don't, if you don't
engage, if they're going to write and report anyway and
those stories get amplified and,and, and in various levels of
ways, even your supporters tend to think something could be a
little bit true. Because.
They want to hear from you. They want to hear from you.

(11:18):
It is no longer, it is no longeracceptable not to engage the
press when they're going to write something disparaging or
when they are even. But most of the time that is not
their stated goal. And this was a group that was
very mistrustful. They didn't have a lot of trust

(11:38):
in their candidate, to be honestwith you.
I mean, that was my impression. Now, remember, I worked for her.
My job was to just implement what they wanted her to do on
the road. And that was totally fine with
me. I had opinions, but like I
didn't really share them with, you know, sometimes we would all
in the car, we would say, what the hell, this doesn't make any

(11:59):
sense. But that was kind of the extent
of it because, you know, everybody was just trying to do
their best. And you give people the benefit
of the doubt. But I think it was really
shocking that somebody who used to do so much TV and Sunday
shows his entire life had not done a single Sunday show until

(12:21):
after we got our butts kicked onon Iowa.
And I'm not suggesting that, by the way, that Sunday shows are
make or break or that they are something important.
It's, it's encapsulates their problem, which was they want to
always run out the clock. They want to avoid interaction,

(12:42):
avoid communication, and avoid engagement That wasn't on
anybody else's terms, but they're on.
They wanted everything scripted,everything choreographed, and
they want to do as less as possible.
Anything that was unpredictable,they wanted nothing to do with.
So there. Was Ezra Klein was talking to

(13:03):
Chris Hayes about this, saying that like Republicans understand
that like all attention is good attention and helps you in the
new media environment and the Democrats are just terrified of
negative attention. And I think that really
encapsulates the Biden campaign.And I think running out the
clock is a great way to frame itin part because it it helps.
It worked for them in 2020. It was a a very specific
election where running out the clock was the right strategy,

(13:24):
running against an unpopular incumbent during a terrible
pandemic where you had an excusenot to be in public.
So I'd I wonder how much of it is just that they ran in such a
unique election that it gave them this like false sense of
confidence in their strategy. And it's a great, it's a it's a
great topic of discussion, Ben, but I'm actually just only
talking about the entire year hewas running before we got to

(13:48):
COVID. It just surprised me that, you
know, the Iowa caucus falls on Monday.
All of our opponents are out there doing what you call the
full Ginsburg's, which was like every Sunday show you can going
on all of them. And he was nowhere.
And it was just, and that day inthe car, she was just like,

(14:09):
well, why doesn't he do any? And I, I mean, I didn't want to
throw. I want, what I wanted to say
was, well, because his team is fucking incompetent and because
they don't understand the media landscape or the moment we're
living in. They still they're, they're,
they're these young kids walkingaround Philadelphia acting like

(14:30):
they're Josh and Toby and Sam from West Wing.
They, they thought they could bully reporters and yell at
reporters and scream at them and, and punish them and be
punitive. And it never served the boss
well. It never served Joe Biden well.
He never well, there's also there's also a lot of office
politics within that whole campaign, but also family

(14:52):
dynamics because if I. Yeah, I was.
I was thrilled not to be in thatand and I had to go in when we
would be at home in Philadelphia.
But it it was, it became very rare and I loved not being
there. I love being on the road.
Yeah, and I I mean, Biden's sister was his campaign manager
and Joe Biden has all these stakes inside the campaign.

(15:15):
Like, how was it? How was it for you managing the
both? Like for me, I wouldn't want to
get in the middle of my friend and his girlfriend's
relationship. I mean, we're in college.
The stakes are a lot less. How do you manage that when it's
the first lady and the presidentand you're trying to manage
these things? There's people who are like and
how does that work in a relationship sense?

(15:37):
That's a good question. And a couple of weeks ago, the
Wall Street Journal did a big story on sort of the machine
around the president that, you know, I think the point of the
story was that they were covering up all kinds of, I
don't know, mental downsides or something in the White House.

(15:59):
And I was quoted in the first narrative of that.
And but my quote wasn't meant tosort of, it wasn't meant to lend
credibility to the idea that there was a cover up or that we
were covering up mental acuity. Just to be clear, in my three
years with them, I never experienced anything like that.
But everybody covers up age. We all, everybody tries to cover

(16:23):
up age. All politicians, all people.
That's human. But there was no cover up of,
of, of any kind of mental decline.
I think like that. But what was going on in that
narrative? I said, you know, one time Jill
was being profiled by Iowa reporter and I had confirmed, I
think how many counties she had travelled to.

(16:45):
And it was let it was more than him.
We did do more events than him when we were when we would chart
our day schedule our day, our, our events were three to four
events a day, sometimes 5. I mean, he, he just didn't.
I think he did maybe usually 2 events.
Maybe he ended up doing more. But it was clear and we publicly

(17:06):
promoted her travel. You know, the reporter wasn't
stupid. I can't lie to a reporter and
say, no, don't write that. I mean, it's all public
information. I would look, it would look like
we were covering something up that we would have no reason to
cover up. And so, but it became an example

(17:27):
of the control and the worry that if people read that she was
doing more than him, it would demean him or it would be
emasculate him, or it would raise questions about his
ability, his physical ability. And that wasn't the case.

(17:48):
But that goes sort of to the root of your question.
And and we didn't want to make him look bad at the expense of
raising her up, right? Because my job took a little bit
of a learning curve because I was used to working for a
principal and she was a principal, but she was the
supporting actor, right? She wasn't the star of the show.

(18:09):
She was a supporting actor. And it was important for me to
understand that. And that was an early example of
of how you can get caught up in that.
But the more uncomfortable stuffwas like briefing her and
preparing her for interviews about really uncomfortable
questions she was going to get either about her son or her

(18:32):
brother-in-law or her daughter or, you know, Trump and what he
said about their family. And those were always
unpleasant. But she was a pretty good sport
about it, to be honest with you.Like it.
It wasn't fun to do to, to ask her those ask her questions.

(18:53):
But it was what I give Anthony and Jill credit for and which
surprised me about Doug Amhoff because he he only did
progressive media. But even with all the, you could
call it some, I don't want to use baggage because that's kind
of pejorative. But everything that was used

(19:14):
against the Bidens in 20 and in 2024 with all those
vulnerabilities, she still took chances.
She still took risks. And we went, we did everything.
We did Fox News, we did Shannon Bream and we did Dana Perino and
Bill Hemmer and we did Jake Tapper and we did local media.
We didn't do anything unless there was a media component to

(19:37):
it. She wasn't scared.
And but we we really did a good job of preparing her for what
those uncomfortable and tough questions could be.
And, you know, I give her a lot of credit for that, that that
year, that, that for that whole campaign.
Yeah. I think I think that's a good
point. I personally think that the

(19:57):
Kamala Harris campaign still function as kind of Joe Biden
being at the top. I think they were maybe way too
careful in who they were speaking to as well.
I think it goes back to what you're saying about these
campaigns maybe not having full belief in their candidate, even
though, even when they're a candidate, it's like a 59 year
old woman is doing 5 rallies a day.
And, and you know, so that's, that's my own little personal

(20:19):
beef. But I, I, you know, I wanted to
ask you kind of everything that you've been through these last
four years, like what's a big take away for how Democrats
should run in the future or how the party should be reformed?
And I personally think if, if, if party operatives acting more
like you and kind of thought more like you with the media,
we'd be in a better position. But what's your advice or

(20:40):
thanks? I.
Appreciate that. I, I don't know if that's true,
but I guess what I would say is,look, I don't think the party,
it, it feels like that sure, because there's a trifecta of
Republican power and this guy who should never be anywhere
near the White House is back in the White House.

(21:03):
But like if you look at like theresults, remember there were six
competitive Senate races and we won five of the six of them in
fives in in six of the seven swing states, voters backed
Trump but said no to the Republican Party on the very
next ballot in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, North

(21:25):
Carolina's governor race, Nevada.
So the party is not starting from Ground Zero.
We're not it it. This is A2 seat margin in the
House. There is a lot of leverage
Democrats have not in reigning in the executives, but at the

(21:47):
negotiating table for sure. Look, my, my only my.
What I would say the take away should be is that there is no
longer voters are not going to accept scripted and
choreographed robotic candidates.

(22:07):
Those days are over. You have.
I thought they were over. Honestly, I thought they were
over in 2004. That's what made me want to go
into political communication. But apparently we have to learn.
We didn't learn 20 years ago. Not that you always have to
counter attack. You always have to respond.
But apparently we didn't learn that.

(22:27):
And I think Hillary learned it the hard way and some other
people at the end of that campaign acknowledged.
So I was surprised a lot of those same people came back to
parachute into Kamala Harris's campaign.
That surprised me a little bit because they certainly didn't
react to events as if they had learned from the past.

(22:49):
But voters want one thing from their candidates.
They will, for they will forgivemostly anything they you can.
You can switch. You can change your mind.
You can switch your position. As long as you are confident in
your in what you're saying and what you're communicating,

(23:10):
voters want one thing from you. They create exactly.
Exactly. They want.
If you can't answer how you voted on a statewide referendum,
if you can't explain why your position has changed, by the

(23:31):
way, perfectly fine. Trump has changed positions a
million times. So many.
Times on abortion on everything.Eating humble pie goes a long
way because you know what? Boaters are actually not really
all too different from the rest of us.
I mean, we all have vulnerabilities.

(23:53):
We all have imperfections. They actually take solace in
knowing that you are human and imperfect like they are.
That's why I love the way Jill was never when she wasn't
reading off of a teleprompter, Dr. Biden was, you know, she had

(24:13):
this kind of very Northeastern ethnic Italian accent that
people always picked up on. Even if she couldn't, everybody
picked up on they loved it. And she, you know, have smooth
delivery. She practiced like she was not.
She's not a natural politician and she would be the first
person to say that. But it's her her authenticity
that makes her so appealing and talented.

(24:35):
By the way, at at being an effective surrogate, but that is
that is what I would tell any candidate these days is that you
can't you can't run out the clock.
That's not that's not a strategy.
It's it's a reaction. And I don't you know, and
depends like what that is reactive to either you don't

(24:58):
trust your candidate or you don't trust the press.
But the truth is, and the truth is, if your candidate is
comfortable and confident in herown opinions.
And by the way, we hope our leaders and our our candidates
are, you know, pretty confident in what they believe in at that

(25:20):
stage of the game. They should be able to go
anywhere. Like, there's not, there's not a
either or with podcasts or legacy media or digital media or
whatever. It's not an either or.
It has to be both. You have to flood the zone

(25:41):
because so many people are are getting their information in
different places. Why would you alienate, why
would you alienate the New York Times?
Why would you alienate Joe Rogan?
Why would you alienate any of those audiences when you need as
many as you can get? I think that that was not
either. They didn't understand it.

(26:01):
They didn't want to take risks or they didn't trust their
candidate. Yeah.
I think that one. And I don't know, I mean, like,
I was frustrated too. I was much, much more behaved
and quiet because I wanted to give them the benefit of the
doubt because I had seen what the Biden people had done to

(26:23):
Biden and I saw it and I was speaking out and got me a lot of
trouble. Look, it cost me friendships
saying what I'm saying to you guys in 2023 when I was out in
out of the White House. But doing some interviews and TV
and and just doing like bloviating and commentary,
commentary saying, saying the quiet part out loud got me in a

(26:48):
lot of trouble and it cost me a lot of friendships.
And nobody disagreed with me, bythe way, nobody said, Michael,
you're wrong. They just didn't like the fact
that I was saying it at all. And that's part of like trying
to, you know, not protect but guard your vulnerabilities of

(27:10):
your candidate. And I'm not saying the quiet
parts. I'm not acknowledging your
vulnerabilities. And you know, they they they
clearly they didn't want to takerisks.
They didn't want to be doing toothey it wouldn't even let him do
a Super Bowl interview for 10 minutes.
And it's the most predictive. It was.
So enraging, Mike, as like a bigNFL fan, like we're all huge.
I'm a big Chargers fan. Sadly, we suck.

(27:32):
I mean, we made it to the playoffs, but like, how do you
not do a Super Bowl interview? Like why it's so enraging.
And I want and, and about the vulnerabilities thing I know
about a lot of people would say back in 2023, Well, we can't
talk about it because the media is going to run on his age.
The media is already running on his age, right?
The media is already doing all this.
You see, it's just on TikTok, right?
There was all these videos of Joe Biden and my friends would

(27:53):
send me and I'm like, Oh, how doI defend this?
Oh, it's really it would, the video was cut.
Like there's all those, there's all this mental gymnastics going
on. We're like, we, we shouldn't go
out there and talk about his vulnerabilities because it's
going to be talked about even more.
Let me know. The fact that you aren't out
there and talking about it is the reason why it's being so
widespread. And real quick, I said this
during the campaign, I would tweet about this even though I

(28:14):
only have like, 4000 followers, but I would just tell people,
you know, like what Kamala Harris could do about, you know,
all the policy positions she's flipped on or change.
Simply go out there and just be like, look, as vice president, I
travelled the country. I met Americans from all
different parts of the country. And I realized that a lot of
these policy businesses I supported before are not
practical. Most Americans don't support

(28:36):
them anymore. And look, I am going to reflect
the view of the voters. And because, for example,
fracking, I used to see, you know, I said ban fracking.
I went to Pennsylvania. I went to these states where
fracking is so important. People have these jobs.
I don't think we have to ban fracking to combat climate
change. I think we can invest in green
energy. Also have fracking.
Like it's so simple. It's so it's so simple.
And voters are going to be like,look, at least she's listening

(28:58):
to us. You know, she flipped her
position, but at least she's being honest and saying she's
travelled the country, met with all these different types of
people and she's changed her mind.
And that's a good attribute to have, yeah.
Democrats. Overestimate voters in most
cases, but I think that's the one case where they
underestimate them, what they'rewilling to accept.
And especially if you like, seemlike you're being very upfront
about something inauthentic. Yeah.

(29:18):
Exactly and guess what she met that your your answer is great
for her. All she had to actually say was
well, what it look what the Biden Harris record.
Look what we've done over the last four years.
We have produced records amount of oil.
We have auctioned off 1.7 million acres of the Gulf of

(29:40):
Mexico for drilling. We granted permits for drilling
faster than Donald Trump did in his first two years.
We've green light the Willow project.
We've produced record crude oil at 12 to 13 million barrels a
day on average. And Donald Trump never got close
to that. He never got above 12.

(30:04):
We did. That's all she had to say.
Talk about your record. Talk about what we've done
yesterday. I've turned.
But look, look, look what we've done.
We are drilling. If you watched Fox and God love
them, I would go on and explain this.
And they probably thought I was living in a different world, but
just go look it up. I mean, we, we, there was no

(30:26):
energy shortage. There was, we were drilling the
entire time. In fact, the environmentalists
hated it, hated us for it. But she was not willing to say
that probably because I, I'm sure she was scared or they were
scared to offend environmentalists.

(30:47):
And that's where comfort and principal and clear
communication standing on principle.
That's like where that comes into play and the fact that she
couldn't do that and defend our record of four years of oil
drilling to the to the fracking answer, which I agree with you,
by the way, fracking was an outsized issue that they used

(31:10):
against her And for one slice ofPennsylvania, 1 little slice in
a corner that cares about it, but it was way overblown in
terms of its significance. And all she had to say was look
how much oil we fucking produce in the under this
administration. You just.
What you just outlined is like the biggest indictment of Kamala

(31:30):
Harris going back years. I think it's running with a mean
philosophy of not wanting to anger anyone, which means that
you don't actually make anyone happy.
And I think that was the same campaign she ran in 2020 where
she tried to not anger the left left wing side of the primary
campaign and also the moderate wing tried to please both of
them and then didn't really findElaine because neither of them

(31:52):
were really that big a fan because she was trying to.
She seemed wishy washy, appealing to everyone.
You talked about earlier the when she refused to say how she
voted on the California proposition about public safety
and like increasing criminal penalties and then ended up
passing with 70% support. I think that's the best example
of that. That's something where literally
70% of one of the most liberal states in the country agrees

(32:13):
with that. But you were too worried about
angering the the groups online who would have complained.
And so do you think that's something Democrats are going to
actually take lessons from? And I mean, obviously the
discourse is, but look. I hope so.
I mean, I, I don't, I, I thoughtwe learned some of these lessons
a long time ago. I thought, especially given

(32:34):
Trump's willingness to speak like a human being, that people
really appreciate. I was a little, well, I don't
know, I want to say I was surprised.
I mean, like the Biden stuff. They they were unadvisable.
You couldn't, I mean, that was it was look, the whole Biden

(32:56):
thing that seeing his undoing and the way it happened.
Look, I don't it was it's sad. It's sad to think about,
especially, you know, because I think about her and how much
pain she probably is in and anger and frustration and but
look, you can only lead a horse to water.

(33:18):
You can't make them drink it. And it didn't matter how many
people were saying do this, do that.
I mean, they didn't care. They didn't they didn't want to
do this is the Biden people. They they didn't want to do Meet
the Press. They didn't want to do the Super
Bowl. They didn't want to go on ATV

(33:39):
tour after the her report. They didn't want to defend.
They didn't want him defending his own son and defending his
own honor and integrity when youcould see his reputation and his
trust and his personal likability.
Just humbling. It was remarkable.

(34:02):
I've never seen anything like these major like violations of
common sense crisis communications, never seen
anything like and then the ultimate what really killed
them, you guys is not so much the debate.
I mean, that was bad, but it washow they responded that really

(34:22):
broke Democrats. It was keeping him off of TV for
eight days after that train wreck.
I would never. I think the train wreck is.
Pretty light. I mean, it was, it was shocking
that even people who I know are smart have such terrible

(34:44):
instincts or don't have the gutsto say this is not going to cut
it. 20 minutes on a Friday nightof a holiday weekend with George
Stephanopoulos is not going to answer questions.
It's what I call satisfying the question.
You you're not going to satisfy curiosity by pivoting, what they

(35:07):
call pivoting or whatever, or dodging or not answering the
question. Voters know when you're being a
phony. They know it very well.
They sense it. In that circumstance, silence
was the answer. By them not doing anything, they
kind of just put them in, put them in the nuclear bunker and
then just let the people run wild with whatever narratives

(35:29):
they wanted to ultimately. He would have still been the
nominee had people in Congress not planted like flat right, do
you think? They just underestimated that
and didn't think that like therewas as much backlash among

(35:49):
electeds. Like were they just completely
unaware? Yeah, look like I was.
I just, you know, my friends whoare chiefs of staff in the House
and in the Senate at the time were perplexed.
They weren't getting calls returned.
They weren't, you know, the, theBiden, the Biden response was to

(36:10):
send a BCC e-mail to members of the House.
That's that was the letter they sent basically telling.
Them to shut up right telling. Them that he's running and he's
going to win. But how many times have we seen
Trump go to Capitol Hill now as president, as ex president, as
candidate? I don't know why Biden wasn't in

(36:33):
that meeting with the senators, some of some of those senators
he's known for over 30 years. And my friends on the Hill, my
friends who are chiefs to these senators and, and, and Congress
members, they were shocked. I wasn't.
I was surprised, but I wasn't entirely shocked because I know

(36:54):
what that operation is like and how arrogant and just the amount
of hubris was incredible as an outsider to to see that they
thought they could get away withsome of these things, like not
doing interviews. But you can also understand
their logic like if you are, I mean, if they it is, it is kind

(37:17):
of a dichotomy of what they weretrying to decide, which is like,
we don't want to expose him because he's too old while at
the same time saying he's not. He's like he's, he's energetic
enough. He has enough wherewithal to
still run a campaign. Those two things are like
competing ideas. But going back to Doctor Biden,
obviously in that time of the campaign, it was kind of

(37:38):
imploding. Do you feel like, and, and you
expressed some frustration with the main Biden team about not
using Doctor Biden the right way.
Do you wish they took more riskswith her and took like if if
they took more risks with putting her out in front of the
public? Do you think like from the Biden
team like? Helping out.

(38:00):
And deciding on what they did. I mean, look, and what, what
risks do you do you think they wish?
Do you wish they had like, askedof you?
Me or her of of. Her of of Doctor Biden.
Because I because I was not withthem.
Let's be to be clear, 2020. Three, right?
That's when you. Yeah, I left yes, in 2020, the

(38:21):
end of 2020, OK. Yeah, OK.
Yeah. But but you're right, I I was
like instead of. I didn't understand why there
was one day this is this is likea more of a tactical example,
but their inclination and their instinct was always to to do
stuff with Hollywood. And they went with some actor

(38:42):
downtown to the Trump trial, an actor who was like 85 and could
could barely was such a nightmare visually, you know,
audibly and just tactically. I don't know what what they
thought when they should have been putting.
There's something that happened that day when I said, well, I
don't understand why Jill Biden wasn't on the view doing this.

(39:08):
Yeah, or so like something happened.
I just remember thinking what isgoing on?
I mean, I wish Jill would have done more.
I wish the Jill of 2019 and 2020was the Jill of 2023 and 2024.
But this was a group that from day one of the White House

(39:29):
operate it as if they were in a bunker and everyone else was out
to get them and and Biden. And when you when you operate in
that kind of mentality, you know, it leads to exactly what
you saw, distrust of the candidate, distrust of the
principal, distrust of the press.

(39:49):
You never saw any of their pressgetting better.
I mean, even Doctor B, her presswas terrible.
She got terrible press that she was.
They were admonished by the White House Correspondents
Association because they violated so many rules.
The press stopped traveling withher and they couldn't get
pressed to go on foreign trips even like her signature trip to
Sicily. At the end.

(40:13):
They really, the the mentality really led to a really bad
relationship and hostility between both sides of the house
and the press. And I got to tell you like that.
That gets you nothing. That got them nothing.
It got the boss no credit for anything.

(40:36):
When you when you treat the press so poorly and you are
punitive and punishing and constantly hostile to them or
downright lying to them in some cases, as that team did often.
And then there will be a moment when the principal always needs

(40:58):
the press and when he needed thegoodwill of everybody.
He he didn't have any. There was no goodwill, no trust
left in the tank. And after that debate, if the
press was holding back, I mean, they put their foot on the gas
and they didn't stop on the reporting, on the palace
intrigue, on on everything. I mean, it, it was the New York

(41:23):
Times, Axios, Wall Street Journal, and they did
incredible, incredible reportingand they made mistakes on their
own. Karine at the briefing room, she
would, she would go out there, they wouldn't give her all the
information and then she'd have to walk it back.
So you see how tightly they controlled information that even

(41:45):
for the public interest, I mean,even after he wasn't the
candidate during the drone stuff, remember how frustrated
people were, right? I mean, Senator Kim from New
Jersey was like, they are not satisfying the public interest

(42:06):
and the public concern with their responses.
They, they are just not being transparent enough.
They're not communicating. And that was them to a tee.
That was how they always were. Well, Michael, I heard on the
relationship with the press, I heard you on a terrible Mary's
show. And I thought it was really
interesting. You were talking about kind of

(42:26):
the origin of the Biden family'smistrust of the media and how
what Joe Biden's image was goinginto that first presidential run
and how he was kind of seen as like the next JFK and this young
guy. And how, like the media's
coverage of him with the plagiarism scandal kind of
soured that relationship until today.
And then a lot of the Biden people distressed.

(42:47):
Could you talk a little bit about that?
I thought that was a super. Yeah, sure.
So look when he Doctor B and himstarted dating, she was a senior
at Delaware. He was 32 in the Senate.
I think she was because she had transferred and she was like
2526 or something when they weredate started dating.

(43:10):
So, and he was elected while shewas there.
She had the only experience she had with him was until 1987 was,
you know, this guy was the sort of the Kennedy of Delaware, the
golden child of Delaware. I mean, he was because he was
young and handsome and got a lotof national attention on his

(43:36):
own, right. I mean, he was, you know, he was
the 1st so many of his colleagues in the Senate in 1976
were running for president. I think seven of them.
And you know, could put puts people in an awkward situation.
It did in 2008 with Dodd and Biden and Hillary, Obama, and he
didn't endorse any of them. He went on a limb and endorsed

(43:58):
Jimmy Carter and he took on a big national role.
He got a lot of national press coverage.
He was groomed to be sort of thenext JF.
He was groomed to be the next John F Kennedy.
He was what every Democrat put their hopes in into.
And he passed on running in 84. Probably smart.
And you know, 87 was really an open free for all.

(44:23):
And so many people were going torun in.
So it was, it was almost like, OK, he'd been in the Senate now
for 15 years. People have always talked about
him running. If there was ever a time, this
was it, right? Young, good looking, attractive,
you know, attractive, young family, articulate, great orator

(44:45):
at the time, accessible and charming.
Joe Biden is charming, he is funny, he is fun to talk to.
And that's part of the tragedy and how they, you know, put him
on a leash lately. But in 87, you know, their
friends Gary Hart and Lee Hart were the subject of a lot of

(45:12):
press scrutiny and investigatorywork on his sex life.
Gary Hart went down. And then it felt like to Doctor
B, you know, she was young. She was like 33 at the time.
And, you know, to her, it felt like the press turned their eyes
on whoever, you know, was the most weak or vulnerable or or or
whatever who like a target that tried to target people.

(45:36):
And that's how it felt to her atthe time.
It was, look, she doesn't like politics.
She does what she does for him. And so, you know, he had been re
elected a couple times. Her experience was mostly really
great, the Senate, spouse club, all those things.

(45:59):
But in 87, when that stuff happened, when the plagiarism
thing happened and, and I don't look, I think it was a cascade.
It was a really bad cascade of events, right?
He had quoted somebody several times giving this speech and the

(46:23):
one time he didn't attribute it,You know, it was taped and the
tape was sent to a reporter. The reporters wrote it up.
And then everybody started digging into his history and,
you know, went looking at his grades and was he telling the
truth about his grades or. And then it turned out one of

(46:44):
his speeches that he had given, you know, lifted a passage from
RFK or from RFK. And it was, you know, it was
actually a staff error, but, youknow, the boss owns it.
And so it was like a Domino's series, right?
And kind of what happens when there's a feeding frenzy.

(47:04):
And they got caught up in that. And it was devastating for her.
She had never, she was attractedto him because of how he
presented himself and his strength and what she always
would always say his strength, his character and his integrity.
And that was the first time she'd ever seen it questioned.
And so even as a spouse for 15 years at that point, it was the

(47:26):
first time she cried about aboutpolitics.
She was a really, really sad. And when they dropped out and
you can kind of go back and watch the video in like
September of 1987, she's kind ofin a, in a stare and kind of
like a daze when she's standing next to them.
And then they they go into a Senate ante room, staff room

(47:50):
because he's about to chair Supreme Court hearings and
Supreme Court hearings are a national stage.
And he's the judiciary chairman.And he said something like,
well, to his staffer, he was like, it only so I can just
focus on trying to do a good jobwith this.
And like she doesn't do this often, but she like cut, cut the

(48:10):
staffer off and, you know, put her hands on his shoulders and
she just said, no, you have to go fucking win.
Because I, I think she knew was a really good opportunity for
reputational rehab because he was leaving one national stage
and he had the opportunity to command 1.
He was given an opportunity so quickly to rehabilitate himself.

(48:33):
And, and for the most part, thatwas the beginning of, of his
reputational rehab. And, but, but I think to your
point then why I bring that up is because it was such a
scarring experience to them. It was like the press was coming
at them and people were telling them to get out and pressuring
him to get out. And, and, and it almost felt

(48:54):
like there was a couple of weeksafter the debate to me.
I wasn't there in 87, but it kind of replicated that the same
sort of pressure cooker that they were in.
And when they're when the Biden family is kind of I think after
that moment in 87, they learned like to not, not let the press

(49:18):
and not let the pundits and and other outsiders push them out of
anything. And you know, that was the
mentality they took in our primary campaign in 2020 when
people thought he was too old, when he didn't think he could
win, when they didn't think we could win the nomination, when
we didn't think we could beat Trump.
I mean, we couldn't get anythingdone in Congress.

(49:41):
We were going to kill the midterms.
And so to them, it just was a natural kind of autopilot to say
we're just going to prove them wrong again.
But they bought into the Biden meet those like being this
underdog and everyone's out to get him.
Yeah, yeah, I. Don't blame them for I don't,

(50:04):
you know, I can't blame family. It's not.
It's the family's job to believein in each other and, and, and
the candidate it's for it's the responsibility of political
practitioners to deliver uncomfortable truths, especially
when you're, when you have a responsibility to not just the

(50:25):
country, but like political party as well.
And that's where they, they, they went wrong.
Somehow they they misread the tea leaves, they misread their
their popularity or they just didn't care and thought
incumbency was, you know, all powerful and maybe could have

(50:50):
been. But they made so many what I'd
call like death by 1000 cuts that it was impossible to give
them the benefit of the doubt itif he had been doing if he was
showing, not telling after the her report doing doing that

(51:12):
Super Bowl interview, which theyactually needed more than
anything because of the her report came out after they had
already declined to do they to do the Super Bowl.
They should have changed their minds and done it.
If he had been showing, not telling, he may have give he may
have gotten the benefit of the doubt that it was just a bad
night. But it was so rare that he

(51:34):
engaged with the media that in unscripted settings that the
debate only confirmed people's suspicions.
I I wonder if you you bring up that death by 1000 cuts kind of
feeling around the campaign. Wonder if somebody to?
Like, but it certainly looked like that, right?
Yeah, yeah, how it felt to the public.

(51:55):
But I wonder if kind of like Biden's other bounce backs, if
it was like A1 big moment, like you plagiarize, like own it,
admit it, you're done. I wonder if that would have been
more of a bounce back opportunity rather than like,
you're not doing this interview,you're not doing that interview.
I feel like there was like, kindof like you mentioned, there's
so many small things that you can't control all the small

(52:17):
things. If it's one big thing, it's like
you plagiarize. Let's focus on that.
Let's change the story. The tragedy.
Of this whole story is like the missed opportunities and and
this is like what I don't it's hard for me to understand about
them. People who I would think I've
been around politics for a long time, but most voters do not

(52:41):
meet their candidate. Joe Biden's charming and he
could, he could, he could charm you and and he's a he was always
a good reach up politician, but most people won't meet their
politicians and be able to know that about them.
They we view the, the how we connect and get to know our
leaders and decide who we're going to vote for is because we

(53:01):
watch them on a screen. In the 60s, it was on TV screen.
Now it's like a computer screen,a phone screen, you name it.
We we only get to know them in in that capacity.
And if they're only talking at us and reading to us from

(53:23):
teleprompters when it was everybody knows is choreographed
and staged and not an authentic portrayal of a human being.
What was great, what everybody loved about Joe Biden was his
humanity. And it was the one thing, one
asset he had that they really, really wouldn't let him use in

(53:43):
the last two years of that WhiteHouse, if people had been
conditioned to see him talking and engaging despite his age.
We all knew what his age was. Nobody, nobody didn't know he
was old. It was the fact that he was
blocked from engaging and communicating with the voters

(54:04):
directly. But you do feel?
Like it was, I know it's kind oflike a conservative conspiracy
that Biden was a puppet president, but do you feel like
it was, And I'm not claiming that's what you're saying, but
do you feel like he he was blocked?
Like, that was something Biden as the president wanted to do.
And I think that was the. Consensus of his staff was that
we should make him walk with a group of people so they can't

(54:28):
see how he's walking. We need to make him take the
shorter steps on Air Force One, even though when he tries to
salute, the ceiling is in the way and you can't see his head.
And the majesty of Air Force Onereally is, is sort of downsized
to that little hole in the, in the belly of the plane.

(54:49):
They did things like that, that really hurt him that, that the
press wasn't stupid, like they could see through it, that they
were just trying to make him as inaccessible as possible.
And I don't think it was becausehe was a puppet.
I think it it's because that wastheir that was their consensus.

(55:12):
They agreed together that they weren't going to engage, that he
was president and there was a lot of hubris in being an
incumbent, that they were very hubristic.
They were very entitled group. They were even when we were
losing the primary, I was kind of shocked at some of their like

(55:32):
approach to everything. But it was by saying screw the
press and screw the New York Times and then just bitching
about it on Twitter and, and calling them names and did not
like, you know, one of the things that really made me angry
was that everybody was just in poll denial.
Poll said the same thing for twoyears, nothing changed.

(55:54):
What about the? What about the 13 keys?
I heard that they they showed Biden was definitely going to
win. I don't.
Think the Alan Lichtman guy. Yeah.
Yeah, he's down. Bad now, guys.
Wrong claim was claiming it but when?
When? They're running on a threat to
democracy and they're trashing the Free Press, which is like, I
don't know #2 Free Press is like, what number?
Article 2 in the Constitution, you know, and they're they're

(56:18):
they're undermining journalism and reporters and calling it
disinformation from like legacy media outlets like the Journal
and the Times and the Post denying the polls.
It was always too early for those numbers.
Did you notice it was always tooearly even though the polls were

(56:38):
kind of saying the same thing from 2022 on?
I don't know. So I, I don't know why they felt
like they had to do that. I mean, everybody thinks it's
because of his abilities. So if they know that, then
that's a real dereliction. And that is like a
responsibility you owe to to theleadership of Congress of the

(57:01):
party. And if they knew that he
couldn't handle it, they should have, you know, been lighted a
primary, a competitive primary in the speech he gave in January
of 2025, he should have gave in 2023.
January of 2023 should have beena kick off to that primary.

(57:26):
But they said, no, we're going to run and we're going to
actually do everything we can tomake sure nobody else can run.
Yeah, I think that. Point is really important
because I I would think if therewas a primary, I don't think
that many notable Democrats would have run like a Governor
Whitmer to Governor Shapiro. I I don't know, maybe we.
Get the same result. I also think we get the same.

(57:48):
Result. So you you think that if there
was like if he had gone out and he said challenge.
Me. Come, come, challenge me.
I think it would have been Marianne Williamson and Dean,
right? No, he would even if they hadn't
like screwed with the primary calendar and tried to proceed
with the 1st. It was all.
But that was tried. That was because they were
scared he was going to be embarrassed, right?

(58:10):
Like you could see through all these amateur like again, going
back to the beginning staff or who the people who are confident
in their camp, in their candidate don't run from the
press. They don't fight, they don't try
to change primary calendars to show a, you know, a big win

(58:32):
right away because you're nervous you're going to lose
like that. That's that's not a lot of
confidence in your campaign on your candidate.
And so if you're trying to rig the primary right outright in
the beginning, they, they clearly knew that there was a
problem with the nut, with the with the depth of his support or
lack of it. But I I think.

(58:54):
If he drops out though at the end of 23 after the midterms we
do, I think we get the same result.
I think Kamala is nominee. Maybe she gets a little more
practice, more time to kind of get AI think they'll hold over
like talking. But you could also make the
argument that then she gets attacked way more in a primary
over that time and becomes she'sable.
I I, I think actually the more Americans saw her, her pro

(59:14):
rating went up even more like her favorite build rating.
She. Probably she a better sprinter
or she a better marathon runner,I think.
Marathon runner I I don't know Iwe'll see, but I think that the
more Americans saw her and her debate performance is really
good I mean look, I I'm a big combo and she but I think the.
I think the important thing is she wouldn't have.
I don't think someone else wouldhave jumped in and beat her.

(59:34):
Maybe they would have tried, butI don't.
I think it would have been a similar calculus to their like
mini primary campaign in the week that he dropped out.
Like I don't know who would have.
Democrats are, too. Loyal, I think.
I think on the other day, Democrats are just way too
loyal. Even when the sink is shipping,
they're too loyal. What do you think, Michael?
Yeah. Well, look, it's, it's a party

(59:54):
that is really, really establishment driven.
I mean, there's not a lot of room for rebels or challenging
authority or like it is, it is very, what they call it,
hierarchical, I guess. And people were I don't know why

(01:00:15):
people didn't say anything or doanything.
I it's fear. It's fear of is it fear of like
your? Job being lost or like what?
You know, it's a professional consequences.
It's like being, you know, if you were to come out and say Joe
Biden should not run, like you were going to be, oh, you're
going to forget being invited tothe White House Christmas party.

(01:00:38):
You weren't going to be like, invited.
You weren't going to allow them to have tickets to the
convention or even when the party unites.
Like, it's pretty vindictive. I mean you.
Can look at AOC and her whole House House of Representatives
leadership debacle or even just justice stems in general.
Like they started out, especially AOC being the

(01:01:00):
opposition voice within the Democratic Party and within a
couple years they're immediatelyfall in line.
It's you see AOC and like Bill Clinton on the same stage, it's
like you, you fall in line and and you're rewarded for that.
And if you're not, we're going to challenge you in the
primaries. We're going to take leadership
positions away from you. You can't be the opposition

(01:01:21):
person in the Democratic well. I, I will say this and look, the
best leaders can keep their teams together and lead their
teams. Pelosi, in the end, was very
good about keeping a very diverse, very fractured caucus

(01:01:41):
disciplined and voting the same way for the most part.
And she was an incredible leaderat getting people to steer in
One Direction. That is a testament to her
ability to not just count votes,but to lead.
And she's a good political tactician.

(01:02:05):
She has good instincts. And you know, what does it say
about Biden's leadership of the party that, you know, support
within his own party crumbled and just a matter of weeks When,
when he when, when it was probably the most, you know,

(01:02:30):
it's probably the most beleaguered he had ever been in
terms of political fate, like onthe line.
But again, there's like there's hubris there.
It's like no one's going to do this to the incumbent president.
No one. And the only person who was able
to lead with a lot of support, Nancy Pelosi was able to.

(01:02:53):
It's not all it wasn't all NancyPelosi.
And like, that's a sore subject for for the Bidens, I'm sure.
But she had a history of keepinga very diverse caucus with many
different interests geographically, Blue Dogs, New
Dems, progressives, the Squad during those years.

(01:03:15):
I mean, I mean, they learned that.
I think the squad also learned that if they want to be
productive, there's nothing fun about being in Congress.
It it's it's compromise isn't exactly fun because you you
don't get what you want to and you have to declare victory
anyway. That's what I I.
I wonder what you think about this is like I I agree with you,

(01:03:37):
Nancy Pelosi is probably one of the most skilled politicians of
of the 21st century so far. But I wonder that's why.
It wasn't even as close. As much as she loved Joe Biden,
loved, loved Joe and Jill Biden.They were so close.
They were very good friends. It wasn't personal to her.
It was literally about winning. Right.

(01:04:01):
And I wonder about her. I wonder.
Oh, go ahead. Sorry about her.
Or Joe Biden. It was literally somebody
putting the party ahead of, she put the party ahead ahead of
herself when she stepped down asleader and she relinquished
power. And this was not personal for
her. This was just politics.

(01:04:22):
And you know what, it should have been that way for the
people around the president and it should have been their
responsibility, not Jill Biden or the OR the Biden family.
It was the people around him that should have showed him how
bad his the on, like the lack ofenthusiasm for him to run again

(01:04:43):
was. And like the internal polling
numbers being a 400 point electoral loss or something like
that, internal polls and then just not telling by yeah, I read
the. Story I think it was in the
Washington Post that that Schumer seemed to cooperate it
with, but the the OR the New York Times by Andy Carney

(01:05:05):
detailing what Schumer did and driving down to Delaware and
getting in the car and crying afterwards.
But the one detail in in there that stuck out to me in that
report, which was incredible journalism was I I know the room
that they were sitting in because I've been in a it's
they're screened in porch and attheir beach house.

(01:05:25):
And remember that meeting with the senators that his staff had
that he didn't even bother to attend to make the case for
himself on the his longest friend in the Senate currently,
because I think he's been there the longest.
Jack Reed from Rhode Island is not known to make waves and he's
not known to say much of anything, to be honest with you.

(01:05:49):
He stays out of the press. He doesn't make waves when I
used to go to caucus, but he rarely spoke at caucus.
He's a very senior member of theDemocratic Party.
And and so he's known Biden forever since the 80s to know
the fact that Biden didn't know that Jack Reed with tears in his

(01:06:11):
eyes said he won't in that meeting with that staff, with
his staff said he won't support him until he takes 2 cognitive
tests to that was it wasn't I mean, yes, it was shocking that
Jack Reed did that. But that is the level that is

(01:06:32):
that was the seriousness of the political situation Joe Biden
was in a clearly didn't know. And and the fact his reaction as
reported is even more horrifyingthat his all that that that the
people around him did not tell him that his oldest friend was
conditioning support. It was.

(01:06:53):
Crazy. But doesn't that kind of go to?
Isn't that maybe the biggest indictment of all?
That if a president isn't cognitively capable enough to
like. Get any?
Information on his own and can have literally anything just
hidden from him by his young advisors and like doesn't have
the ability to like Google it inthat kind of fruit that he

(01:07:14):
shouldn't. Have been the.
Dylan, it goes. Back to like Dylan, Dylan, what
you said about why, like, why the puppet part and like why he
just went along with their strategies all the time, right?
It's kind of the same thing. I mean, the president, like the
president should have trust in his advisors.
Look, there are plenty of peoplein Washington who look and, and

(01:07:37):
it's hard, I will say this, it is hard.
But these people a bit like the reason, like they, they've been
around him forever is because they know him best.
They should be able to have the hard conversations with him.
That was the whole purpose of them being there is because
they, the insular, you know, inner ring could talk to him and

(01:07:58):
it was all he would listen to. But if, if you can't, if you're
just going to say yes to everybody, to to that, to the
principal, if you're not going to tell them the truth even when
it's uncomfortable, and then there's really no purpose for
you. Because there's plenty of people
who will tell any any boss what they want to hear like they're a
dime a dozen. It's, it's the, it's the fantasy

(01:08:22):
trope. I'm a Lord of the Rings super
nerds. It's like, it's like that the
king of Rohan getting like the the little creepy guy whispering
in his ear, telling him exactly what he wants the king to do.
It's like at a certain point youalso like, yes, you're right.
You should be sitting there. These are talented people who
know their fields, they know their industries, they know

(01:08:42):
defense, they know foreign policy.
But you also have to be able to be like, OK, sometimes you just
could be like, Are you sure about that?
Or can I go Fact Check this withsomeone else?
Or that's the. Thing operate a computer.
Enough to look up on yourself. Like that's the thing.
I mean, Biden was not a very decisive person and our
administration was not defined by decisiveness.

(01:09:04):
I would say a part of the most frustrating about Biden was that
whether it was doing interviews or whether it was coming out on
for a position, it was always like they had to be backed into
a corner. Whether it was on voting rights
or or something else, whatever. There were so many things that
their hand always had to be forced to get him to do the

(01:09:25):
right political thing. Fighting himself is actually
really hard to to handle becausehe does probe so much.
He does do exactly what you said.
And so I don't, I don't know. Look, I wasn't there, so I don't
know. I only read what was reported.
But but yeah, do you ever see The West Wing?

(01:09:47):
I haven't. I'm sure belay has.
I just started. Watching it, great show, great
show, good it's. Really good.
So yeah, there's a in the last season during the presidential
campaign, the candidate is are you?
Spoiling it, Michael. No, no.
But I will say, I will say 1 great part where they're
bringing on a consultant and he's like, So what?

(01:10:07):
What did you think of my speech?And she's like, well, I didn't
think it was. I didn't think your joke was
very funny. And he said, well, what did you
think of the argument? She was like, I don't think
anybody's going to buy that. And he goes safe.
Did you like anything about whatI did?
And she'll be like, oh, sure. She said, oh, sure.

(01:10:29):
But there's plenty of people to tell you that.
And if you don't, if you can't find any, just tell me.
I'll, there's plenty of them everywhere.
I'll go find them for you because they will tell you how
great you were. And I'm sure you have plenty of
people around you to do that. And like, she was right.
I mean, like, she's right. It's the people who are going to

(01:10:50):
tell you that was terrible. That was that was a mistake.
Yeah. You.
You. Made the the kind of comparison
between Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.
Now, like Nancy Pelosi is this leader who has control of her,
of her caucus and the party. Do you think there is almost
like a, a mutually exclusive crossover between being

(01:11:14):
electorally popular and being a good political winning and
dining person? Because I kind of think like Joe
Biden was probably not very goodat this state at either of those
things. But like Barack Obama, for
example, was very electorally popular at certain points in his
career also as president, wasn'tthe best at like operating

(01:11:38):
within Congress. I don't know.
He wasn't. In fact, he didn't get anything.
He had Biden. Go.
And he'd sent Biden a lot of times to go meet, right?
Right. Yeah, I mean, look, Obama
changed, you know, the the the face of the industry of
healthcare as we know it. And people have more access to
coverage, not always more affordable, but definitely have

(01:11:58):
more access. As a result, more people have
healthcare today. But the party was also decimated
at every level after that. And he couldn't get, he couldn't
work really with Congress very well and didn't get much done
after 2010. He didn't get anything.
He didn't really get anything done that wasn't done by
executive action after we lost the midterms.

(01:12:22):
And somebody, somebody said it to me this way.
Somebody who worked for Obama and Clinton on a senior policy
position said one time Bill Clinton's biggest problem was
that he was always the last person in the room because he
thought he could convince anyoneof anything if he could just

(01:12:44):
talk to them. Obama's problem was the
opposite. He was the first one out of the
room because he didn't care whether you agreed with him or
not. He knew he was right and he
wasn't going to waste his time trying to convince you.
Biden is much more like Bill Clinton in that respect.

(01:13:05):
Biden, Biden loves the Senate. He loves legislators and
lawmakers and and he is willing to spend the time and but I do
think, I don't know. I don't know if like the best of
Biden was was there those last two years, but I could, yeah, I

(01:13:25):
wasn't there. So I don't know.
But I don't want to take away his decades and skill as a good
politician, as a, as a good retail politician, as a
charming, likable, funny, talented campaigner and
politician because he was all those things and he was that in

(01:13:47):
2022. But I I don't know why.
Why we weren't allowed to see that when he was in the last
political fight of his life. Yeah, you have to show, not
tell. It would have been.
Nice to see that finally that wrap up in the right way I.

(01:14:09):
I agree with you. I, I, it's just to me, it's
really sad and tragic story because I think so much of it
could have been avoided. Yeah, I I wanted.
To kind of transition just real quick before we close the
episode into the future and whatyou're doing currently, so you
are at is it Ballard firm? Is that how you pronounce it?

(01:14:29):
Yes, it's. Called Ballard Partners.
Ballard. Ballard Partners, if you want to
tell us a little about that and if you guys are accepting any.
Interns that. I don't know.
If I don't know how many internswe you would, who would sign up
for it? So I work for a bipartisan firm
and there are many bipartisan firms in Washington where after

(01:14:51):
people leave government, a lot of people join like because the
best consulting firms in town that the the private sector
wants advising them are not ideological, right?
Because their bottom line is their bottom line.
Like they are job creators and profit maker profit earners.

(01:15:16):
Like they care about how government and politics is going
to affect their business. And it's not just the private
sector, but it's, you know, there's labor unions, there's
there's organize nonprofit organizations and there's
academic institutions. So you will read that my firm
represents that. We represent TikTok and we

(01:15:38):
represent Harvard and we just signed the LA 28 Olympics.
We have foreign governments. We have, you know, the financial
sector, the tech sector, it is cross industry.
We come from all sectors. We are bicameral, bipartisan.

(01:16:02):
But for the longest time, there were only, you know, the Bush
alumni and the Clinton alumni kind of, you know, had monopoly
over the lobbying world in DC. And like most of the country,
the private sector assumed Hillary Clinton was going to be

(01:16:23):
president. And so when Trump became
president, there was no firm in Washington who had direct
connection to the incoming WhiteHouse because Trump didn't want
any Bush people around him. So there were no, there was no
real access points or connectivity to the private

(01:16:46):
sector and the new administration.
And that's, that's, that's bad for everyone, to be honest with
you. But one firm in Florida who was
a Florida firm that represented the Trump Organization in
Tallahassee and did their state work and you know, environmental

(01:17:07):
work, the zoning and things likethat.
And it is called Ballard Partners, the firm with I'm
trying to think about Pam Bondi's firm and Susie Wilde's
firm. So I was the Biden.
So they when they opened up a Washington office, you know,

(01:17:29):
obviously they were quite popular and they lasted and
stayed through the Biden administration.
They brought on me when I, when I left government and because,
you know, companies needed help,not just companies, labor, like
I said, labor unions, organizations and and colleges,

(01:17:51):
things like that. They all have government
relations department, the CCU system does You have lobbyists,
Everybody has lobbyists. They just probably don't know
it. But we're a bipartisan lobbying
firm and our partner Pam just became the attorney general.
Their former, the former part, aformer partner became the White

(01:18:13):
House chief of staff. And so it has a lot of history
in Florida and this is a very Florida centric White House, but
it's a bipartisan firm with withpeople from former Trump
administration, Biden administration and we work
together for our clients. Yes, so it's called advocacy.

(01:18:35):
Some people say lobbying and they they like to say they like
to perception is that it's a dirty word.
But in reality, obvious, you know, are there to advocate on
behalf of somebody's best interests, whether it's a
college, a grocery store, socialmedia company like TikTok, or a

(01:19:02):
small business. A woman owned small business
that I lobby for. So, you know, it runs the
gambit. But you know, it's a unique,
it's a you know, I went there in2020.
I started in Ballard in 2023 andit was pre anybody knew what was
going to happen in Republican orDemocratic circles and went

(01:19:23):
there because it was a good opportunity.
And, you know, and politics is what it is.
Raise money for Democrats and and Republicans.
It probably sounds weird to to young people.
Washington actually isn't as partisan as it seems like.
We do all socialize together anda lot of us end up working

(01:19:47):
together at some point when we all leave government and
politics and we all are, you know, doing something different
outside of just my team versus your team.
It's the clients team that was. Something that I was pretty
shocked to when I was interning on the hill.
Yeah, yeah, the. The famous I think it was maybe

(01:20:08):
it was Hillary Clinton or someone said that like House of
Cards West Wing. Those aren't the most realistic.
It's it's Veep and that that that's how people much more
close to how people at. 1000% Veep is more, much more having,
yeah, worked at the White House and Capitol Hill now, Veep is
definitely the most accurate description of of Washington.

(01:20:31):
So, you know, I think because they had good consultants on
that show who tried to make it as real as possible.
Well, I don't. Know if that should be
comforting or terrifying, but it's exactly.
A little bit of both. But it's been awesome having you
on, Michael. I think we'll wrap things up
there. But it's been great to get such
a unique like insider perspective into all this.
So thank you. Thank you again for joining us.

(01:20:52):
Yeah, thanks for. Having me, I appreciate it.
And you guys can see Michael, hewas on Fox News yesterday, I
believe. Very good interviews.
So sound. Will Kane?
Yes, we're taking on Will Kane is fresh off the Rosillo
podcast. Awesome.
Well, this has been another episode of the Progressive
Podcast. Thank you guys for listening.
Make sure to stay tuned to the Progressive feed for the next

(01:21:14):
episode. A lot, many more exciting guests
to come. But yeah, thank you guys for
listening. Thank you, Michael.